by Dov Kornits
“I made a documentary in 2019 called Cheating Hitler: Surviving the Holocaust, which was for History Channel Canada,” says filmmaker Rebecca Snow. “Cheating Hitler was about child survivors of the Holocaust. I looked at three different stories, three Canadian Holocaust survivors originally from Eastern Europe, and they each had very different stories. I took some of them on a journey back to places that in many cases they hadn’t been back to since the 1940s. And one of them was Maxwell Smart, his adopted name in Canada. He has this incredible story. He’s originally from Eastern Poland, now Ukraine.
“Maxwell didn’t want to come with me because he really finds it hard to go back. But I took my film crew there and as I was filming in these woods where he hid as a boy, 12-year-old boy in 1943 during the Nazi occupation of that region, I noticed when I was filming that the trees and the landscape looked very much like parts of Northern Ontario where I live. I thought, ‘if we were ever to dramatise Max’s story, we might be able to shoot it in Canada.
“As I was becoming closer and closer to Max, helping him tell his story through the documentary, I was increasingly realising that the documentary really just felt like the beginning and really, his story needed to be told in a narrative form, in a drama. I kept closing my eyes and seeing it in front of me, seeing it dramatised. And so the years after the documentary, I came to that realisation that I should probably just try and write the script, and Max gave me his blessing and I adapted his memoir, The Boy in the Woods, into what’s now the film.”
The Boy in the Woods sees Max (young actor Jett Klyne, who has a bit of Timothee Chalamet about him) separated from his mother and sister, hidden with a rural Polish family by his aunt. As pressure builds to find all of the Jews, Max is forced to hide out in the forest for months to evade capture.
“It’s such an unthinkable period,” says Rebecca Snow when we ask why so many films are set during the Holocaust. “So many horrors occurred, and there are still survivors telling their stories now. I think that’s also why we are so keen to not only get these stories down in any form – like Max’s story is now in the book, a documentary and a film – but to get these stories documented because the survivors are getting very old now. The second World War and particularly the Holocaust is something that we’re still trying to understand how it happened, the degree of hate and horror and how that can occur. I think it’s very important to understand that today.
“In a sense, The Boy in the Woods is a warning from history. We live in incredibly distressing times in terms of racial hatred. Antisemitism is on the rise. We see that everywhere, including Australia. Islamophobia is on the rise, and there’s so much polarizing rhetoric. And this film can show just how dangerous that can be.”
Born in the UK and arriving in Canada in her mid twenties, Snow has always been inspired by history. “I studied archeology and ancient history at university,” she tells us. “Every time I travelled anywhere, I was always going to the ruins and the historical places. I think human stories from history are so fascinating to me because ultimately history can feel like a sort of distant, dusty, old thing that happened, different events that are so far away, so long ago. But when you connect with the personal stories and those words of people from history, you realise that we’re all connected, through our emotions and our reactions and our feelings. I’ve always felt that’s the best way to connect with historical events is through the people and their stories.”
And what’s next? “I’ve just finished making a documentary series about space, which was a nice break from some of the heavier Holocaust related things that I’ve been doing. Always looking for my next, definitely would like to do more drama and continue in the narrative world for sure. I just need to find right story. This one really grabbed me by the throat and the heart, so it’s almost like I didn’t have a choice. I had to make this one and I’ve got to find another one that makes me feel the same way.”
The Boy in the Woods is available now on Digital and DVD
